Out of the 684.88 hectares of crop loss in the recent northeast monsoon rain in Ramanathapuram district, Tiruvadanai block appeared to have suffered the most as crops on 639.37 hectares had been damaged, according to a survey conducted by the officials of Agriculture and Revenue Departments.
Disclosing the information at a farmers’ grievance meeting held here on Tuesday, the officials also said that the crop damage in Kadaladi covered an area of 37.92 ha, R.S. Mangalam 3.41 ha and Ramanathapuram 4.18 ha.
Presiding over the meeting, Collector Shankar Lal Kumawat said that the district had 261.40 mm rainfall excess than the normal annual rainfall which was 1088.40 mm.
With the district having copious water in hand, he appealed to the farmers to make use of the best from it during the ensuing seasons by judiciously drawing the water for irrigation.
When some of the farmers pointed out the non-release of crop insurance claims, the officials said that 5,206 farmers who had registered their names and remitted the premiums for 2020-21, had got ₹ 2.42 crore as compensation so far.
In the last five years, the insurance company had released ₹ 1,434.57 crore to the farmers in the district. Steps would be taken to check with the insurance firm about the non-release of the claims. The officials also clarified that the settlement sums were directly credited to the beneficiary bank accounts.
The PWD engineers said that out of the 1,763 tanks in the district, 447 among them had full storage level of water, 294 tanks had 25-50%, 989 tanks had 50-90% and only 33 tanks had less than 25% of the storage level.
The Agriculture Engineering Department officials responded that they gave gadgets on nominal rent to the farmers during the pre and post-harvest.
The meeting was attended by DRO A.M. Kamatchi Ganesan, Joint Director (Agriculture) Tom P Cylus, PA to Collector (Agriculture) Dhanuskodi, and others.